


Nothing Left To Forgive

by Glittering_Mess



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Evil Hollyleaf, F/M, a lot of killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 11:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17980160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glittering_Mess/pseuds/Glittering_Mess
Summary: AU Evil Hollyleaf - In which Hollyleaf, stricken with grief and fury and anguish, sees no other solution but to seek revenge on the one cat who started it all: Leafpool. But killing her sets a whole new story in motion; one in which Hollyleaf does not run away but chooses to challenge her destiny head-on, all while leaving a trail of blood in her wake. She WAS meant to be the third cat in the prophecy, even if StarClan thinks otherwise.





	Nothing Left To Forgive

_Muscles rippled beneath her claws. Blood splattered. Her heartbeat drummed with a wild fury._

_The shape beneath twisted and writhed like a tossing wave; then came a sudden stillness that settled like the calm of the lake at night._

_It had happened so quick. So fast. As easily as paws through water._

_How had her face looked then, reflected in the lake’s depths? Whatever she had seen, it wasn’t her. Her eyes were too wild, too vicious, the look in her gaze startling even her._

But now...

  Now, Hollyleaf’s face was twisted in half-anger and half-sneer,her body planted in front of the den’s opening so there was no escape for the tabby-and-white cat in front of her.

Hollyleaf jabbed at the berries with a claw. “You see these deathberries? You’re going to eat them - or I’ll make you,” she growled, putting as much threat into her voice as she could muster. She ignored the ache in her chest pulling her back from what uncontrollable event was about to unfold. Ignored the doubt, the fear gnawing at the corners of her mind.

No room for that now. Only unbridled, uncontrollable rage.

She had killed a coward once. She could do it again.

Her mother - _No!_ \- the cat who cowered before her gaped at her with shock. Her face flickered to surprise, then fear, and then finally, like the sigh of a wind, into weariness.

“Hollyleaf,” Leafpool meowed sadly. “I have lost my kits, the one cat I loved, and my calling as a medicine cat. Which do you think would be easier for me, to die or to go on living?”

 _There’s only one answer to that!_ Hollyleaf’s mind spat, but she was much too overcome with fury to listen.

The fur along her spine bristled. With her lips drawn back into a snarl and a voice dripping with venom, she hissed, “You don’t deserve to live!” Her training as a warrior sprung to action. With a single blow, she knocked Leafpool to her side and pounced on top, pinning her shoulders so she could only lie there beneath her, face-to-face.

They were so close their whiskers touched. Hollyleaf felt her warm breath coming in gasps, her mother’s amber eyes as round as two moons and positively brimming with an emotion she could not place.

This was the face of her mother.

The face of a coward, a liar, a traitor.

Hollyleaf brought her muzzle close to her ear and whispered, “You’re going to suffer, just like how I suffered under the weight of your wretched lies.”

She rolled the deathberries toward her.

If Leafpool had wanted to, she could have stopped her. Could have opened her mouth and yowled for the help of her Clanmates.

But this time, she did not resist.

 

* * *

When Leafpool finally gasped her last pained breath, Hollyleaf didn’t feel the wave of relief waft over her like she had expected. Instead, there was only fear and pain and a dark, leering emptiness.

Oh, the pain.

Killing Ashfur had almost masked it. It had been like a refreshing drink of water after a long, greenleaf day.

But watching Leafpool die was something else entirely. 

First came the heaving and sputtering, the choking of words that caught in her throat and refused to be coughed out. Then the foaming in the jaws, and the collapse of her limbs as she tried and failed to desperately stand. The wide-eyed fear in those amber eyes that Hollyleaf had once looked up to. 

And then the swift stillness. 

_ She deserved it,  _ Hollyleaf told herself over and over again, but watching Leafpool’s death had not been the death of a traitor. 

It was the death of a Clanmate, a mentor, a medicine cat. A cat that Hollyleaf had loved a long, long time ago. And perhaps, she thought, Leafpool had loved her too.

The thought was too terrible to bear. Her legs trembled. She threatened to vomit. She turned away from the body, eyes squeezed shut. She wanted to run - StarClan knows where - but just run and run until all the breath left her body, until there was nowhere left to run. 

“Hollyleaf?”  
Her eyes snapped open. _No, no please -_

“What’s going on?”

Jayfeather hesitated at the mouth of the den, feeling her sister’s terror. His nose twitched. Then his hackles rose. 

He whispered, “Great StarClan, Hollyleaf. What have you done?”

Shoving past her, he knelt down beside his mentor’s body and felt for a heartbeat. 

Hollyleaf found her voice again and was blabbering now, saying things she thought made sense and things that she wished she understood herself. “I-It wasn’t me, I swear! I-I don’t know what happened, I saw her, she f-fell, I wanted her to kn-know how she made me feel, I--”

When Jayfeather turned to her, his piercingly cold eyes made her want to shrink.

“You killed her,” he said, voice trembling. Then, disbelievingly, he said again, “You killed her.”

“I-It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t want this, I--” Something seemed to snap in place inside her. All the fear, the pain, was replaced with something stronger, a strength that gathered in her heart and pulsed outwards. 

Taking a step forward, she growled, “This was her own mouse-brained fault. If she hadn’t put her own selfishness over the good of everyone else, none of this would have happened.”

He snapped back, “And was it  _ Ashfur’s  _ fault too, that he had to die for all this?”

“How did you--” Briefly, she felt him probing along the darkest corners of her mind. Shaking him off furiously, she snarled, “He had it coming! I had to do it for our sake! To protect us!” Then, pleadingly, she mewed, “Don’t you understand, Jayfeather? Having Ashfur reveal our secret to everyone would take away everything we had!”

Jayfeather took a step back from her outburst, an expression of shock still raw on his face. 

He spat, “But you had no reason to kill Leafpool!” His voice trembled. “T-to kill her.”

Overcome with grief, he buried his muzzle in his mentor’s cooling fur, unable to speak. 

Hollyleaf could only stare with uncertainty, running her actions over and over again in her mind.  _ Of course,  _ this had to happen, didn’t it? Leafpool had to pay for her crimes. For all the pain she had caused them, for ruining their lives. 

Her uncertainty morphed into a fear that ran down her spine and chilled her to the core.

She nudged him with her nose. “I’m sorry, Jayfeather,” she whispered. “You won’t tell any cat, will you?”

He turned away, his pelt still touching that of Leafpool’s. For a long, long while, neither of them said anything. What was there to say?

The only sound came from her pounding heart. An owl called softly from the clearing outside. A chilled breeze rustled some grass.

Then, Jayfeather murmured, “We can’t change what’s already been done. Leafpool and Ashfur are dead.” His voice shook a little at that. “And in the whole world, we’ve got only each other.” Slowly, he heaved himself to his paws. 

Hollyleaf’s heart skipped a beat when he whispered in her ear, “Take her to the deepest part of the lake. No cat must ever know about what you’ve done.”

She blinked at him gratefully. He still wouldn’t look at her, and instead of answering to her relieved  _ thank you,  _ he padded to the shadows of the den, his tail trailing in the dust behind him. 

Not for the last time in her life, Hollyleaf wondered if, by giving up her normal life as a warrior, she had also sacrificed something important along with it. 

The only reply to the question was the owl cooing softly across the quiet, moonwashed clearing. 


End file.
